[Woj] BREAKING: The Portland Trail Blazers are trading guard Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks, sources tell ESPN.

Suns fan here, and I don't get this trade at all. The main reason is, Ayton's stock has taken a huge dip in the last few months. Rather than give up and cash out, we should have held out if there wasn't a good deal. Ben Simmons was an negative asset, and by waiting 6 months, Philadelphia got James Harden back by waiting. There is zero reason to give up.

Second off: this doesn't help the team. The biggest weakness the team has is that it is very reliant on 3 star wings that have an injury history. Ayton isn't the healthiest, but is 4 years younger than Nurkic, and has played more in general. If we had solid backups, that my be fine, but the team is very weak at the big positions. And it isn't like Grayson Allen is some HUGE pickup that to overcome the weaknesses we take on with downgrading at center. The team seems objectively worse.

Third off: I have had one championship in my lifetime (Diamondbacks in 2001). That team was a bit of a unique situation because they were an expansion team that got all the right pieces early, but I still loved the big players. Johnson, Schilling, and Gonzales all joined the team at 30 or layer, and stayed 4-7 more years with the team. They felt like they wanted to be in Phoenix, and be on that team. The community loved them, and they loved them back.

This current Suns team is 15 months away from a 64 win season, and the only players who saw any consistent play time still on the team are Devin Booker and Bismack Biyombo. The rest of the team are guns for hire. They will do their job, but move on to the next place in a few years. Even if the Phoenix Suns organization wins the championship, it won't be won by a team that I watched struggle to get there.

I really thought that Booker, Johnson, Bridges and Ayton was a solid core that would put the Suns near the top of the league for a decade. It is so sad to all of it gone.

Yeah I see people talking about Allen’s shooting but it wasn’t ever really there for the bucks when they needed it outside maybe 1 series that I can think of. Think this move happened for the suns more because it’s hard to compete when Ayton is as unhappy as he is but as you said they could’ve waited a bit.
I think the main benefit for the suns is just splitting up Ayton's salary into multiple pieces which can be traded later this season. Watch they'll trade for a solid $10-15m rotation player before the deadline.
Yeah, this is not an obvious move for the Suns. After their big trades I was pretty worried about their depth, and I can see why this move would appeal to them, sort of? At least they're getting a mix of youth and experience, with decent upside.

If internally they've given up on Ayton for reasons we don't know about, maybe it's not the worst trade in the world. Certainly not the best. Little and Johnson are interesting. I'm really curious about what Ayton's value will be in a year.

But none of that changes the guns for hire feeling. Being a fan is hard in the analytics era, as much as I enjoy it.
Fair warning I only really watch the Suns playoffs games. But I personally have not seen anything from him that places him far above even Nurkic for the Suns.

I think he himself is a net negative bc he views himself as an all-star (which he is don't get me wrong but not on par w KD/Booker). The suns need someone like Looney who's gonna hunt rebounds and get easy buckets. They need more of a role man in that position. Now he absolutely can be this man, but he's just not. He's not aggressively hunting rebounds or using his size to his advantage and often settling for mid range jumpers (which are good but again you have book and KD who are both better at this)
Suns fan here, and I don’t get this trade at all. The main reason is, Ayton’s stock has taken a huge dip in the last few months. Rather than give up and cash out, we should have held out if there wasn’t a good deal.

I think this should tell you how bad the situation was with him though. Chemistry is already going to be a pretty big hurdle, that and depth. They must have thought a mediocre return for Ayton was better than having him share the court with Beal and KD at all. That's very telling imo. The tensions/disruptions that would come from Ayton's lack of effort could very much ruin everything. You guys are essentially trying to pry open what could be a very short championship window. Hopefully it works!
I think even Biyombo is still a free agent.
So there are changes to the CBA that will come into affect that make the trade make more sense. Their trade options become more limited moving forward and splitting Aytons deal now will let them pickup someone at the trade deadline. Waiting could have meant that trading him would be impractical if not impossible, and if the off court issues got bad enough that coaches wanted to bench him they couldn't really afford to.

That said this is insanely low value for him. I can't believe there wasn't a team willing to give up anything decent for him, but I can't imagine doing this deal without exhausting other options.

Hopefully you guys can figure out a way to get a few more quality role players on the team.

As a Blazer fan I wish him the best, no hard feelings. I hope he gets that championship. I'm looking forward to the new-look Blazers:

Scoot Henderson
Anfernee Simons
Shaedon Sharpe
Jerami Grant
Deandre Ayton

Looks like we're going to move Jrue.

As a heat fan, if we can somehow get Jrue, that would be an amazing consolation prize. Just not sure I see the heat dealing with the blazers at all anytime soon, lol
- Outside of all the media rumors and social media back-and-forth, who knows what that Riley-Cronin relationship is really like. Maybe it's fine and all the rumor bluster is just way overblown. Either way, I think it's going to be a lot easier for us to trade Jrue than Dame.
That sure is a roster with a ton of potential
I think both jrue and grant will be traded
Don’t forget about Jrue. If he stays would be a big piece and good veteran presence for Scoot Ant and Shaedon

As long as it’s not for Giannis I love this. We desperately needed outside shooting and Dame has shown he steps up big in the playoffs. Expecting a Nuggets/Bucks final now.

Edit:

Trade details:

Lillard goes Milwaukee as part of a 3-team deal with Jrue Holiday, Deandre Ayton, Toumani Camara, a 2029 unprotected MIL 1st, and unprotected MIL swap rights in 2028 and 2030 to Blazers. Phoenix lands Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson.

Losing Jrue hurts their perimeter defense a lot but I think you live with that to get Dame for just Jrue/Allen. The interior defense will still be great and there offense should be much better now on the playoffs. Think it’ll come down to how much you can get from Middleton and just have to hope Lopez doesn’t have a big drop or anything like that.

Really sad to see Jrue go tho, seems like one of the nicest guys in the league so wish him the best.

Man that would be hilarious.

It definitely makes them more interesting. I think it's entirely possible to slow down a duo if the rest of the roster can't step up, but it's going to take a lot of work at the defensive end.
- Yeah it’ll come down to how much they can get from Middleton I think. I don’t expect Brook to fall off much since he had a great year last year and doesn’t rely on athleticism a lot but Middleton did not look good coming back from injury and they’ll need him to decent still if they want to win it all.
That’s a pretty good return for Dame for Portland and Dame gets a solid chance at chip with Giannis.

Phoenix must be very unhappy with Ayton to unload him like that but flip side is his value alone probably didn’t seem very high recently.

Massive trade. Really sad to see Jrue leave, he was so good for the bucks. This means they will likely be relying even more heavily on Brook Lopez to anchor the defense. Also I know Phoenix wanted to get rid if Ayton but Nurk seems like a downgrade

He is. Can't stay healthy either.

Damn, Bucks losing Jrue hurts a lot, he's the best PG defender in the game, but his offense falls off so bad in the playoffs. I like the move overall. Great help for Giannis.

With this they should be considered the best team in the East. Their defense will probably suffer a bit but we'll see with how the new coach schemes it.

Bucks FO making the right moves to give them a chance of winning immediately. Let’s see if this works out in the long run.

As a Knicks fan, I'm just happy he didn't end up with the Heat... 😂 sorry, I'm petty

I think a lot of fans of other teams feel that way. After how many of their fans have acted when all this started up in the off season.

Finally, was waiting the whole summer here to find out where Dame would go. Delighted to see Dame on a roster with a top3 guy, Giannis will not believe the pressure Dame will take off him to produce offensively, but more will be asked of him on D. Overall, huge downgrade in D from Jrue, but much larger improvement in O that makes it well worth it. It's early, but MIL/DEN would be a spectacular finals.

Who does Jrue help the most if he goes there, and who is likely to be able to put something together for him?

Bucks lost Jrue and Grayson Allen right? I wonder what happens to their backcourt defense.

Jrue even said he wanted to retire a buck too.. seeing Jrue go sucks for sure but a talent like Lillard is not something you see often. They did have to move on from that Jrue/Allen duo as it clearly didn't work out. Miami fans must be livid though. Wonder what really happened with all the 'tampering' Jimmy was talking about

Pretty sure Jimmy was just trolling haha

Dame is not that much better than Jrue.

If I hear another peep from Dame about wanting Miami, I'm going to block his name from everything.